'Cut his mike,' producer suggests

The Keating Five scandal, and John McCain's role in it, has received relatively little mention in presidential campaign coverage, and at least one Fox News host seems dedicated to keeping it that way.

Appearing Thursday morning on Fox & Friends, radio host Mike Papantonio tried to remind viewers about McCain's intervention with federal regulators on behalf of real estate mogul Charles Keating, who was trying to avoid regulations of a savings and loan he owned during the S&L crisis of the 1980s.

F&F's Steve Doocy told Papantonio to "pipe down," called him "rude" and demanded he "cut it out." A show producer could be overheard saying "cut his mike."

As Papantonio tries one last time to explain the details of the Keating Five scandal, Doocy again cuts him off.

"This is not the History Channel," he says.

Papantonio's apparent crime was interrupting fellow guest Michael Reagan, the conservative radio host, who was arguing that it would be unfair to judge McCain based on his actions 20 years ago.

"It has everything to do with what's happening today," Papantonio said before being told to pipe down.

Regardless of whether Papantonio was being rude, preserving an orderly debate certainly could not have been Doocy's goal in silencing the guest. Not two minutes before his admonition that Papantonio was "being rude," Doocy repeatedly interrupted his guest to deliver talking points that might as well have been written by the McCain campaign.

At least three times Doocy interrupted Papantonio as he argued that McCain's political gambit to "suspend" his campaign and delay Friday's debate was more a response to his flagging poll numbers than an attempt to fix the economic crisis. Doocy wasn't buying it.

"If Barack Obama wants to do so much for the economy, why doesn't he go to his day job and work in the US senate?" he asked Reagan, cutting off Papantonio's argument.